After sailing on Puget Sound and in British Columbia for over 30 years, my wife, Jeri, and I retired to Florida, bought a house on Punta Gorda and worked hard to get it straight. The walls had been painted, furniture bought and assembled, belongings packed, transported and ...read more
“Jib alone is never a good idea,” our sailing guru Jerry told me. (Everyone should have a sailing guru). “Why’s that?” I asked. “It’s so much easier than putting up the main.” “You can only sail off the wind,” he said. “No upwind capability. What happens if someone falls ...read more
When you’ve been sailing with your spouse for more than 30 years you get to know each other pretty well. It almost goes without saying that you don’t always see eye to eye and so sometimes there are negotiations, sometimes arguments and sometimes acquiescence. In the end, the ...read more
The lifejacket was an afterthought. The visitor had motored his way up the river, and I’d waved him over toward a vacant club mooring nearby. Sitting in my cockpit sipping coffee in the morning sunlight, I’d watched him, solo, make two failed attempts to hook the pickup. There ...read more
“My name is Petty Officer Jaime Vanacore. I am your rescue swimmer.” Her Dolphin helicopter hovering 70ft over the peaks of the waves, Jaime had zipped down from the helicopter to the ocean, first with 25 knots of wind whisking her around and then with 15ft waves smacking her. ...read more
Ba-boom, boom, boom! The report was deafening, bone-shaking, as though it came from inside of a thunder cloud. I practically jumped out of the V-berth on my Catalina 34 as she lay just south of the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. “Well, hell’s bells!” I ...read more
April 29, 2010, began as a day full of promise as I set sail at 0830 from Marina Real on the Sea of Cortez in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. Heading out on My Traveling Star, my Bayliner Buccaneer 22, I enjoyed perfect weather and a fair wind. It was the best day of sailing I had ...read more
